Abstract

I have shown that weak variation of the tunnel transparency of the collector barrier with bias has substantial (and frequently crucial) effect on the high-frequency properties of the resonant-tunnelingdiodes (RTDs). Also it has been shown that the real part of the RTD conductance can be negative and large at the frequencies much higher than the reciprocal quasibound-state lifetime in the quantum well between the barriers of RTD, if (as opposed to common practice) the RTD collector is heavily doped and does not have thick spacer layers. The displacement currents are responsible for the effects. A simple equivalent circuit of RTD is proposed, and it fairly well describes the published experimental data.